By far, today he is the senior most PRO who is still active in the film industry. Rajaram Pathak, known more as R.R. Pathak. When JYOTHI VENKATESH meets him for this interview at his modest apartment in Andheri, Pathak makes tea with his own hands and reiterates that the golden days of the PRO are over now and today there is no status, position or prestige for a PR person in Bollywood and one cannot compare then and now.
The system of PR has changed drastically. When I ruled supreme, I was looking after only the publicity of feature films and only the print medium was there as TV channels did not exist then but today the pr persons look after the publicity of not only feature films, but also TV serials, web series and fashion events too.
R.R. Pathak adds. “I may be wrong too but today though the number of PR persons has increased, the PR persons today do not have dignity or quality and except for some agencies which also have good copywriters on the staff, most of the PR persons today do not know to write even a single sentence in either English or Hindi and any Tom, Dick and Harry can today easily become a PR person, if he knows some star, journalist or for that matter TV production house,” Pathak rues.
Asserting that only the good old veteran PR persons enjoyed a reputation on their own, Pathak says that today the electronic media journalists do not even know what to ask a star. They do not know left or right of the person they are interviewing but ask them any nonsense and hence there is no rapport between the stars and the journalists today.”
Pathak does not agree that the PR person is superior to the press folks or vice versa. “You cannot say that a PR person thrives because of the media or the media is superior to the PR person because both cannot survive without the help of one another. If the fourth estate does not print whatever the stuff that the PRO is giving, the PR person is nowhere.”
How did you begin your career as a PRO? I asked Pathak. Pat comes the reply, “I came from Varanasi where my hobby as a college student was to see each and every Hindi films first day first show. I belonged to a well off philanthropic family there and used to bunk my classes in college to see films and used to read all the film magazines in Hindi. One day I felt that I could also write about films in them and started writing letters to the editor. After seeing my name in print in those magazines though I did not get any remuneration, I decided to come down to Bombay to try my luck.”
Once Pathak landed in Bombay , he met his brother ‘s friend Dhirendra Kishen who was a very well known free lance photographer in demand who was popular with actresses like Asha Parekh, Sadhana, Raakhi, Saira Banu etc for the portfolios that he used to take of them. It was Dhirendraji who used to send me on errands to different actresses to deliver the portfolio pictures that he used to take and also taught me how to write press releases for publications as there were a very few PROs then including Colin Pal, Harish Kumar Mehra, Bunny Reuben, B.K. Verma, K Razdan etc.
How did you get your first assignment as a PRO? I asked Pathak. “I happened to meet a journalist called Suroor Lucknowi at Prakash Studios and we became good friends. Through him I landed a job as the PRO for a small budget film called Krishna Leela for which I was paid a princely sum of Rs 50 per month then. It was soon followed another picture called Vidyarthi. Though I continued to run around for the next two to three years like a mad guy and do different films , till I bagged the offer to do publicity for Arjun Hingorani’s film Kab Kyun Aur Kahan, way back in 1973, which starred Dharmendra who had become one of the top heroes by then, I was not at all taken seriously as a PRO”, Pathak sighs. Pathak remembers with gratitude that it was thanks to PRO Gopal Srivastav who had introduced him to Arjun Hingorani when he had to go to Lucknow for a long period and Arjun appointed him as his PRO. Till Arjun Hingorani made films, Pathak continued to be his PRO since then.
R.R. Pathak confesses that his main setback as a PRO was that he never condescended to be the chamcha of any star. “Jeetendra who was popular then was working in most of the South Indian films and so when any producer from down South used to sign me to do PR, he would ask them to opt for his favorite PRO, at my cost and I lost out on many assignments because of this’, he avers.
Once Pathak fell sick and could not meet moghul D Rama Naidu when the latter’s manager Rajesh, who was his good friend, fixed up an appointment with him for Pathak and the assignment went to PRO Gopal Pandey but soon enough Pathak was also in demand down South and started working for several producers including K Bapaiah, AVM and also D. Rama Naidu for whom he worked for movies like Aaghaaz, Hamara Dil Aap Ke Paas Hai etc.Innumerable are the shooting schedules of the producers for which Pathak had flown along journalists by cartloads from Mumbai and looked after them in places like Ooty, Nainital, Chennai, Kashmir etc, which he says is a rarity now because producers mostly shoot abroad.
R.R.Pathak modestly says that he was blessed by the Almighty and producers knew that he was sincere to provide him with a lot of time and energy to promote even newcomers, in addition to the stars. It was Pathak who promoted Aamir Khan when he was the publicist for Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, which was Aamir’s debut film as a leading man, Hrithik Roshan when he was the publicist for his debut film Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Ajay Devgn when he was the publicist for his debut film Phool Aur Kaante and Mithun Chakraborty when he was the publicist for his maiden venture Mrigaya.
Pathak who has been the publicist for over 300 films in the last 48 years since 1969 when he promoted Tulsi Vivah and also worked for several stars like Vinod Khanna, Kishore Kumar,Tahir Hussain, Sudhakar Bokade, Nasir Hussain, Dinesh Patel,K.C. Bokadia, Kundan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Biswajeet fondly remembers today’s celebrities like Javed Akhtar, Shatrughan Sinha etc and the good old days when he spent time with them when they were nobodies, rues that PR is a thankless job today.
Pathak laments that today the artistes have no respect for PR or the scribes and are in their own world surrounded by their managers and security guys and says that the good old days, when stars used to love to wine and dine journalists, will never be back again.
R.R.Pathak, who had even turned a producer for the sake of his son Rahul Pathak and made a Marathi film Tu Bold Mee Cold,which tanked at the box office, says that his favorite films include Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Phool Aur Kaante, Himalay Putra. “I was very proud when Dharmendra recommended my name to Hema Malini and personally asked me to cover the publicity campaign for her film Dil Aashna Hai, because he was very impressedc with my track record”, exults R.R. Pathak.
Pathak signs off by stating that today when he looks back at his career proudly, he is more than happy.“I have been sincere to my work and it is 48 years now but still I am continuing to work with my colleague Neelam Gupta and handling the publicity of films as well as TV serials like Tarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chasma”.
